(FORTUNE Magazine) – For those compelled to mark the passing of the millennium with a sickening display of wealth, there are plenty of options. For $100,000 you can cruise across the International Date Line while being serenaded by Tony Bennett or circumnavigate the globe via Concorde. But those experiences are so fleeting and so...cheap. The millennium seems to demand something more lasting, like a $1 million commemorative writing desk that doubles as a music box. Enter Reuge Music, a Swiss music-box company, which teamed up with Australian furniture maker David Boucher to produce the Millennium Signature Desk. This five-foot-tall, 550-pound, egg-shaped escritoire is made of French burr walnut, Indian laurel, Australian maple, ebony, faux ivory, Italian marble and shagreen (a scaly leather made from stingray skin). Drop its semicircular front leaf to reveal an art deco mirror and a giant music-box mechanism--six nickel-plated cylinders, each of which plays four melodies. The tunes span the past 400 years of musical history, from Bach's Chorale No. 147 to the Beatles' "When I'm 64." As the music plays, lights designed to mimic twinkling stars appear in the mirror. (Not that I've seen the desk in person, mind you. There is only one in existence, and it's currently on loan to a prospective buyer--"It's with a sultan," says Alison Black, Reuge Music's American sales rep. I have, however, seen the ten-minute video the company provided.) The desk is crowned with a diamond-encrusted mechanical bird that pops up from a secret compartment to whistle and flap its wings. "We wanted to create something a little bit crazy, something mind-boggling, for the millennium," says Stefan Muller, Reuge Music's president. Reuge plans to build five of the desks. Who might buy them? Well, the company's past clientele includes Donald Trump (who bought a $2,000 music box that plays "My Heart Will Go On" from Titanic as a gift for Celine Dion), Elton John, Hugh Hefner, the usual slew of Japanese tycoons and Arab sheiks--oh, and John Tesh.

--Jeremy Kahn